Be Excellent To Each Other

Hello.

We have recently been plagued by loads of little moths within our house. They're only tiny little things, but they're quite annoying. I say they're moths, at least I think they are. Seem relatively harmless and flutter around occasionally, fairly easy to kill individually, and seem to be eating a section of carpet.

Anyway, I can get them one by one, but they seem to have got the hang of this reproducing lark. So, how do I banish them from my house, before the carpet wears away and I fall into a black hole?

Buy a macro lens and embrace their beauty.

Ok, so I know a bit about this.

First, vacuum, and then vacuum again.

Vacuum all of your carpets (obviously) and also your curtains and soft furnishings.

Then steam clean the carpet if you can. If you can't do this, use a steam iron and hover the iron, blasting steam at the affected area. And shampoo it. By hand if needed.

Adult clothes moths do little damage, it is the larvae that you really really need to look out for (and eggs, which will obviously become larvae.)

You need to treat ALL your clothes and blankets, etc, those in wardrobes and those in storage. Clothes moths mostly go after wool and silk garments and furnishings. Even if they haven't attacked your clothes yet they will find the dark recesses of cupboards and a handy supply of wool food irresistible at some point and then will come back for a second or third round at your carpet.

Clothes and blankets should be washed at a very high temperature. For anything like wool which can't be washed high due to shrinkage, put the items into plastic bags and put in the freezer for three days defrost, then repeat, re-freezing.

If you need to do this in batches, do not place treated items anywhere near untreated ones until the whole load has been done. Whilst your clothes are being treated, clean your wardrobe, ever single nook and crevice. Vacuum, and vacuum again.

Mothballs give some deterrence, BUT only in closed areas like chests and storage boxes. Anything that is regularly opened (like a wardrobe) will not be helped by mothballs as it needs to be airtight to build up enough concentration in the area to be a deterrent.

People say that cedar chests/balls are a repellant, but really the protection is very minimal.

Handily, there's an ace little book due out soon with a section on this very subject.

To confirm, they look a bit like this, yes? (spoilered for the squeamish)


Some varieties are a little darker in colour, but are usually about 1-1.5cm in length

Bleh, they got into a wool carpet in my house once. Under a chest of drawers, think it was slightly damp there, they ate the carpet and turned into maggots. Ended up throwing the whole carpet out and varnishing the floorboards instead!

Larvae, not maggots. Maggots are from flies.

Murderers.

Get a small yappy dog, small yappy dogs love eating moths. Also spiders.

Take off and nuke the site from orbit.

The problem here is that you are massively underestimating Curio's laziness.

Spiders. Thousands of spiders.

Then lizards to get rid of the spiders. Then snakes to get rid of the lizards.

Then mongooses. That's the best bit!

And then gorillas to get rid of the snakes.
And then just wait for the gorillas to hibernate.

And then dogs that fire bees out of their mouths.

Then he shall have to live with an infestation and holes everywhere.

Replace everything in your house with synthetic fibres. Eat nylon, moths!

This sounds plausible.

Is there not just some spray I can buy?

P.S. Many thanks for the information, Meems. 'Tis appreciated.

Some sprays will kill adult moths, but like mothballs need to be in such high concentrations that you will have to evacuate for a bit. Spraying Individuals won't help as for each one you see, there will be many more in hiding.

And sprays won't help with the eggs/larvae, and they are your main problem, really.

Heeding Kalmar's story, do under the furniture, too.

That's the reason the clothes moth population is so much lower than a hundred or so years ago.

But also why we now have SYNTHIMOTHROIDS!

Wait a minute, Mothra's not even in that clip. I fail at moths.

Also, sprays might be toxic to baby. Ho hum.

For the time being I will instruct the cleaner to make sure she really goes over those areas carefully. Then in six months time we'll move.

Job done.

Or NO MORE KABANOS!